current as of 13 September 2019

Will the real Brad Mehldau fans please stand up?

“Please note that this is not a seated event.” That’s one of the things the venue points out about the fast approaching appearance of Mehliana. And be upstanding too for some intriguingly offbeat support worthy of the heyday of the old New York club the Knitting Factory, in a rare Shoreditch sighting of the Oren-o-phone. No, not something that comes with 4G, but a customised tuba.

Mehliana, Brad Mehldau going electric in a rocketscience duo with cult ex-Avishai Cohen drummer Mark Guiliana, are set to hit Village Underground, which last year hosted the frequently riotous collaboration between Neneh Cherry and The Thing, with some wallop. The cavernous old industrial building near the train tracks that early summer’s night was packed to the gills with loads of old punks and free jazz nuts. Tessa Pollitt of the Slits spun some dub reggae before Cherry belted out Suicide’s ‘Dream Baby Dream’, and The Thing would have set about dismantling the place if it hadn’t been already left to rot in the post industrial pre-digital age that laid waste to the area.

There’s no ex-Slit billed this time, but the Oren-o-phone played by the must-hear Oren Marshall (the Mehliana entourage equivalent of Colin Stetson to Arcade Fire) should wet the crowd’s whistle to begin with. But maybe a few of those who heard Mehldau at the Barbican during the London Jazz Festival delivering his take on Paul McCartney’s ‘Great Day’ might be just as aghast at the thought of what he’s plugging in for as curmudgeonly Dylan fans were when his Bobness scandalised Newport way back when.

Mehliana finds Mehldau on Fender Rhodes and a bunch of old synths, while Guiliana’s style brings together judderingly-jagged sounds, Afrobeat flavours, hand tooled Cobham-esque patterns, and a post-Vinnie Colaiuta sense of bar-line abandon in a formidable maelstrom of boulder-melting proportions. After all that, and all the standing, everyone’s going to need a real good sit-down. SG